Cult Of Erinyes
A Place To Call My Unknown

THE REVIEW

Listening to these Belgians Cult Of Erinyes, one understands how well the lesson of a seminal and fantastic group like the Emperor has been comprehended and carried forward: it starts right where an album like "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk" had left off, from those recesses filled with malignant epicness, that descriptive power, that spatial and highly emotional pacing.

The COE take that lesson and transport it to a new level, soaking it in the filthy swamp of depressive akin to early Shining, spitting it out laden with that aura of death of the soul, black and hopeless which the aforementioned group has always borne. What emerges is an unleashed dog of atmospheric-depressive-black metal, racing at a thousand miles an hour, garnished with lysergic and magnificent surges that would make even the most demanding black-metaller on earth shiver, approaching in some small aspect the epic fury of the marvelous Primordial, or the surreal atmosphere that bands like Enslaved and the like know how to create: emotional ups and downs mingle with nasty and hyper-compressed guitars, with truly inspired riffs as hadn't been heard in quite a while, taken straight from the Norwegian school and transported to an almost modern and thrash level; melodies from the underworld, seasoned with damned choruses, spit in the face the shame of living on this earth, while that voice dispenses, with overflowing malice, chants of endless damnation, moving between the classic evil scream and truly well-crafted and placed clean choruses.

Obviously, we are not talking about anything new, but as someone said in another magazine, there are two types of great bands: those that dispense originality from every pore with new and unheard hybrid genres, and bands that take past lessons and season them with a personality that raises them from the thick cauldron of mediocrity that plagues the earth. Cult Of Erinyes belong to this second band category if it wasn't clear: nothing original but carried forward with such a personality and conviction of intent that makes them immediately great, exciting from the very first listen.

We often say that music with a capital M is dying, only to be systematically contradicted by bands that with class and a considerable dose of skill, and sometimes genius, manage to produce platters that move the realms of personality and originality one step further forward.

Absolutely worth a try!